1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to computer telephony, and more particularly to call routing on a telephone network.
2. Related Art
Telecommunications network carriers perform intelligent call routing (ICR) to provide a high level of control over the routing of calls. ICR can be used to determine the destination of a call (that is, the point of call termination) based on one or more criteria, including dialed number, Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS), calling number, Automatic Number Identification (ANI), point of call origination, point of call termination, time of day, day of week, caller-MCI entered digits, etc. ICR can also perform load balancing to route calls to one of a plurality of possible destinations on a call-by-call basis. Load balancing can be based on a number of criteria, including termination availability, random selection, round-robin, and the like.
Because ICR provides extensive control over the processing and routing of calls, many customers of carriers desire to perform their own ICR. One conventional approach to implementing customer ICR requirements is to incorporate the call routing features desired by the customer directly within the carrier's network. This approach suffers from two significant drawbacks. First, customer-specific features implemented within one carrier's network are generally not portable to another carrier's network. Second, this approach requires the customer to provide proprietary call data to the carrier for implementation. A customer's proprietary call data can include information such as lists and profiles of its customers. For security reasons, many customers will not provide this sensitive data.
In another conventional approach, the carrier simply provides a communications interface between the customer and the carrier's ICR systems and network. This approach also suffers from two significant drawbacks. First, this approach does not provide adequate security for the carrier. A customer, or any other user who gains access to the communications interface, can cause significant harm to the carrier network. Second, this approach has limited resistance to failures. Such an interface is limited to the network and system redundancy provided by the ICR system.
What is needed, therefore, is a way to permit customers of a carrier to perform ICR on calls in the carrier's network without jeopardizing the security of the carrier's network.